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Abstract

A novel high speed interferometric ellipsometer (HSIE) is proposed and demonstrated. It is based on a novel differential-phase decoder which is able to convert the phase modulation into amplitude modulation in a polarized heterodyne interferometer. Not only high detection sensitivity but also fast response ability on ellipsometric parameters (EP) measurements based on amplitude-sensitive method is constructed whereas different amplitudes with respect to P and S polarized heterodyne signals in this phase to amplitude modulation conversion is discussed. The ability of HSIE was verified by testing a quarter wave plate while a real time differential-phase detection of a liquid crystal device versus applied voltage by using HSIE was demonstrated too. These results confirm that HSIE is able to characterize the optical property of specimen in terms of EP at high speed and high detection sensitivity experimentally.

The molecular alignment of homogeneous LC at (a) parallel-aligned condition at offstate with initial orientation θpre, (b) the effective index ellipsoid model of homogeneous LC, (c) the side view of PALCD in order to find the relation between PALCD and the incident laser beam, (d) symmetrically tilted condition of molecules to the central surface (z=d/2) between two ITO films with applied voltage at on-state where the effective tilt angle is θet.

The rise time τrise and decay time τdecay of phase retardation of homogeneous PALC under the condition of applying 10 VAC square-wave voltage (1 KHz). In this experiment, τrise=186 ms and τdecay=213 ms were measured.

The error of Δ under the conditions of (δκP/κP)=0.01, (δκS/κS)=0.01, and (δκDiff/κDiff)=0.0025 when (a) the Δ is from 0° to 2°, (b) the Δ is from 178° to 180°, (c) the Δ is from 45° to 135°. The error of ψ from 0° to 90° is shown in (d).